Attach a nickel to the tip of the bow!

April 2, 2019, 2:52 PM ·
I tried this just for “fun”. To me it felt a little smoother and less bouncy?? My bow is carbon fibre, weighs 60 gm and the balance point is in the usual area. I actually like it. I hope it doesn’t sparkle in the orchestra! Any comments? Has anyone tried this?Terry

Replies (16)

April 2, 2019, 3:20 PM ·
Martin Hayes, the wonderful Irish fiddler used ot live here in Seattle. One day he was telling me a story about the bow that he had used as a young man. It was head light, so he glued a coin to the side of the head.Although I do not advocate glueing things to the instrument or bow, if it was good enough for Martin...

It is a way to move the center of mass of the bow toward the tip. I used scotch tape for temporary attachment. I went to my luthier, who installed a lead weight inside the tip. I calculated how much weight I wanted to put there there by how much I wanted to move the CM, how much the bow weighed and the original position of the CM (jr.high school math these days).

April 2, 2019, 6:24 PM ·
Bows that are tip heavy can track nicely and require less work to pull a full sound all the way to the tip. It's when you have to play fast and off the string that you will require a bit more effort and can be cumbersome. Generally, some lead can be used in the mortice if there is room to add weight. I've added up to 2.5 grams in a typical sized mortice and still fit the hair comfortably.

April 2, 2019, 7:52 PM ·
I was thinking of getting a nickel tip plate cut for one of my CF bows. The two CF bows are the same model and they play basically the same. That might add one gram at most though.

April 3, 2019, 9:03 AM ·
The problem with bows that are too light at the tip is that a fast sautille becomes impossible because the balance point is too low in the bow. If you do the stroke fast enough, it ends up not at the balance point but actually somewhere above the middle of the bow. However, if you don't use this stroke you may not care.